Phil Smy, former Chief Technology Officer for Toygaroo, told Shark Tank Blog, that Toygaroo might have had trouble scaling the business. “The business was growing,” he said. “To be honest, that was the problem. Explosive growth is a difficult thing to handle for small businesses. I thought – and still think – it is a great idea. The business model needs some changing from what we were doing. I would have grown more organically (i.e., slower) and also found investors who were willing to go the distance.”
In the United States, certain electronic commerce activities are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These activities include the use of commercial e-mails, online advertising and consumer privacy. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 establishes national standards for direct marketing over e-mail. The Federal Trade Commission Act regulates all forms of advertising, including online advertising, and states that advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive.[25] Using its authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices, the FTC has brought a number of cases to enforce the promises in corporate privacy statements, including promises about the security of consumers' personal information.[26] As a result, any corporate privacy policy related to e-commerce activity may be subject to enforcement by the FTC.
The changing market represents a vast opportunity for businesses to improve their relevance and expand their market in the online world. Researchers predict e-commerce will be 17 percent of U.S. retail sales by 2022, according to Digital Commerce 360. The U.S. will spend about $460 billion online in 2017. These figures will continue to climb as mobile and internet use expand both in the U.S. and in developing markets around the world.
A strategy that is linked into the effectiveness of digital marketing is content marketing.[41] Content marketing can be briefly described as "delivering the content that your audience is seeking in the places that they are searching for it".[41] It is found that content marketing is highly present in digital marketing and becomes highly successful when content marketing is involved. This is due to content marketing making your brand more relevant to the target consumers, as well as more visible to the target consumer.
Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s, when[15][16] the proliferation of devices' capable of accessing digital media led to sudden growth.[17] Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that digital marketing was still growing.[18][19] With the development of social media in the 2000s, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, consumers became highly dependent on digital electronics in daily lives. Therefore, they expected a seamless user experience across different channels for searching product's information. The change of customer behavior improved the diversification of marketing technology.[20]
E-commerce Enterprise software Computational mathematics Computational physics Computational chemistry Computational biology Computational social science Computational engineering Computational healthcare Digital art Electronic publishing Cyberwarfare Electronic voting Video games Word processing Operations research Educational technology Document management
Understanding Mobiles: Understanding mobile devices is a significant aspect of digital marketing because smartphones and tablets are now responsible for 64% of the time US consumers are online (Whiteside, 2016).[44] Apps provide a big opportunity as well as challenge for the marketers because firstly the app needs to be downloaded and secondly the person needs to actually use it. This may be difficult as ‘half the time spent on smartphone apps occurs on the individuals single most used app, and almost 85% of their time on the top four rated apps’ (Whiteside, 2016).[44] Mobile advertising can assist in achieving a variety of commercial objectives and it is effective due to taking over the entire screen, and voice or status is likely to be considered highly; although the message must not be seen or thought of as intrusive (Whiteside, 2016).[44] Disadvantages of digital media used on mobile devices also include limited creative capabilities, and reach. Although there are many positive aspects including the users entitlement to select product information, digital media creating a flexible message platform and there is potential for direct selling (Belch & Belch, 2012).[46]
In 2018, E-commerce generated 1.3 million tons of container cardboard in North America, an increase from 1.1 million in 2017. Only 35 percent of North American cardboard manufacturing capacity is from recycled content. The recycling rate in Europe is 80 percent and Asia is 93 percent. Amazon, the largest user of boxes, has a strategy to cut back on packing material and has reduced packaging material used by 19 percent by weight since 2016. Amazon is requiring retailers to manufacture their product packaging in a way that doesn't require additional shipping packaging. Amazon also has an 85-person team researching ways to reduce and improve their packaging and shipping materials.[70]

With brands using the Internet space to reach their target customers; digital marketing has become a beneficial career option as well. At present, companies are more into hiring individuals familiar in implementing digital marketing strategies and this has led the stream to become a preferred choice amongst individuals inspiring institutes to come up and offer professional courses in Digital Marketing.

Websites such as Squarespace and WordPress offer mobile-friendly, ready-to-go e-commerce templates that help you get a store up and running quickly. As a shop owner, you will need a way to collect credit card payments from consumers online. PayPal, Square and Google Wallet are all popular ways of accepting and managing online payments. You can also sell your merchandise through online giants like Amazon.

As mobile devices become an increasingly integral part of our lives, it’s vital that marketers understand how to effectively communicate on this unique and extremely personal channel. Mobile devices are kept in our pockets, sit next to our beds, and are checked constantly throughout the day. This makes marketing on mobile incredibly important but also very nuanced.

To cease opportunity, the firm should summarize their current customers' personas and purchase journey from this they are able to deduce their digital marketing capability. This means they need to form a clear picture of where they are currently and how many resources they can allocate for their digital marketing strategy i.e. labour, time etc. By summarizing the purchase journey, they can also recognise gaps and growth for future marketing opportunities that will either meet objectives or propose new objectives and increase profit.
Drupal Commerce – This is an open-source ecommerce framework that enables users to build online stores and applications on Drupal. Drupal Commerce is highly flexible and offers hundreds of modules that allow users to enhance and extend its functionalities. There’s also Commerce Kickstart, “a distribution of Drupal Commerce packed with features that make it more complete, faster to launch, and easier to administer.”
To cease opportunity, the firm should summarize their current customers' personas and purchase journey from this they are able to deduce their digital marketing capability. This means they need to form a clear picture of where they are currently and how many resources they can allocate for their digital marketing strategy i.e. labour, time etc. By summarizing the purchase journey, they can also recognise gaps and growth for future marketing opportunities that will either meet objectives or propose new objectives and increase profit.
Among emerging economies, China's e-commerce presence continues to expand every year. With 668 million Internet users, China's online shopping sales reached $253 billion in the first half of 2015, accounting for 10% of total Chinese consumer retail sales in that period.[42] The Chinese retailers have been able to help consumers feel more comfortable shopping online.[43] e-commerce transactions between China and other countries increased 32% to 2.3 trillion yuan ($375.8 billion) in 2012 and accounted for 9.6% of China's total international trade.[44] In 2013, Alibaba had an e-commerce market share of 80% in China.[45] In 2014, there were 600 million Internet users in China (twice as many as in the US), making it the world's biggest online market.[46] China is also the largest e-commerce market in the world by value of sales, with an estimated US$899 billion in 2016.[47]
The kind of content you create depends on your audience's needs at different stages in the buyer's journey. You should start by creating buyer personas (use these free templates, or try makemypersona.com) to identify what your audience's goals and challenges are in relation to your business. On a basic level, your online content should aim to help them meet these goals, and overcome their challenges.
As mentioned earlier, technology and the internet allows for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week service for customers as well as enabling them to shop online at any hour of that day or night, not just when the shops are over and across the whole world. This is a huge advantage for retailers to use it and direct customers from the store to its online store. It has also opened up an opportunity for companies to only be online based rather than having an outlet or store due to the popularity and capabilities of digital marketing.
Considered as one of the biggest social media platforms, YouTube really changed the image of internet along with its contemporaries like Google, Facebook and Twitter – the titans of the modern World Wide Web. For the past decade, the internet has been transformed from a source of information into haven for different ventures like entertainment, music, games and business.

A key objective is engaging digital marketing customers and allowing them to interact with the brand through servicing and delivery of digital media. Information is easy to access at a fast rate through the use of digital communications. Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. Through Digital communications it creates a multi-communication channel where information can be quickly shared around the world by anyone without any regard to who they are.[30] Social segregation plays no part through social mediums due to lack of face to face communication and information being wide spread instead to a selective audience. This interactive nature allows consumers create conversation in which the targeted audience is able to ask questions about the brand and get familiar with it which traditional forms of Marketing may not offer.[31]

At this stage, you’ll be itching to get the store out into the World Wide Web. However, make sure you’re well prepared to measure the success of your launch – defining your key performance indicators upfront will help you track your progress and performance and fix any issues as they emerge. Other important things to take care of include setting up your social media profiles, getting the email marketing ready, installing Google Analytics, doing keyword research, defining your shipping strategy and finalizing the launch promotion plan. Yes, that’s a lot of work, but a good start is half the job done. When you complete the checklist, try running your store through the Shopify store grader to catch errors if there are any.
Like any digital technology or consumer-based purchasing market, e-commerce has evolved over the years. As mobile devices became more popular, mobile commerce has become its own market. With the rise of such sites as Facebook and Pinterest, social media has become an important driver of e-commerce. As of 2014, Facebook drove 85 percent of social media-originating sales on e-commerce platform Shopify, per Paymill.
Did you know that the top listing in Google’s organic search results gets an average of 34% of the clicks? The second gets around 20%. The third gets 13%… That means all the rest of the results on page one (paid and organic) fight over the remaining 16%. The paid results only get about 5% of the traffic — it’s a horrible affliction referred to as “ad blindness.”

Well, the answer should depend on which stage of the funnel the video is geared towards. If it’s an introductory video, ask them to like and subscribe to your page for more content. If it’s a demo video, ask them to check out your website for more information. Creating calls-to-action in your videos will actively guide your viewers through the sales funnel and help you see results faster.

Content marketing specialists are the digital content creators. They frequently keep track of the company's blogging calendar, and come up with a content strategy that includes video as well. These professionals often work with people in other departments to ensure the products and campaigns the business launches are supported with promotional content on each digital channel.

Off page SEO: This type of SEO focuses on all of the activity that takes place "off the page" when looking to optimize your website. "What activity not on my own website could affect my ranking?" You might ask. The answer is inbound links, also known as backlinks. The number of publishers that link to you, and the relative "authority" of those publishers, affect how highly you rank for the keywords you care about. By networking with other publishers, writing guest posts on these websites (and linking back to your website), and generating external attention, you can earn the backlinks you need to move your website up on all the right SERPs.

It’s essential to practice inbound marketing techniques when marketing your YouTube channel and videos. Create content that shares an interesting story and provides your viewers with valuable information. Market that content across different platforms, including social, email, and your company blog or website. Optimize your content by including cards and end screens with clear CTAs.
With the explosion of digital media, people began to engage with each other – and the companies they did business with – in new ways. The relevance of traditional print and broadcast channels declined, completely changing the consumer-corporation dynamic. Digital channels opened doors for consumers. No longer passive participants in a one-sided marketing conversation, consumers became empowered authors, publishers and critics. The digital landscape is participatory, an area where consumers exchange ideas. Marketers no longer drive the discussion. Everyday consumers are now the style makers and trendsetters.
By using Internet platforms, businesses can create competitive advantage through various means. To reach the maximum potential of digital marketing, firms use social media as its main tool to create a channel of information. Through this a business can create a system in which they are able to pinpoint behavioral patterns of clients and feedback on their needs.[32] This means of content has shown to have a larger impingement on those who have a long-standing relationship with the firm and with consumers who are relatively active social media users. Relative to this, creating a social media page will further increase relation quality between new consumers and existing consumers as well as consistent brand reinforcement therefore improving brand awareness resulting in a possible rise for consumers up the Brand Awareness Pyramid.[33] Although there may be inconstancy with product images;[34] maintaining a successful social media presence requires a business to be consistent in interactions through creating a two way feed of information; firms consider their content based on the feedback received through this channel, this is a result of the environment being dynamic due to the global nature of the internet.[31] Effective use of digital marketing can result in relatively lowered costs in relation to traditional means of marketing; Lowered external service costs, advertising costs, promotion costs, processing costs, interface design costs and control costs.[34]
Visit each location before the shoot. On your scouting trips, make sure you’ll be able to capture the kinds of shots you want for your video. Typically, it’s better to have more space so you can adjust the camera position as needed. You should also check for any loud or ambient noise like busy roads or air conditioning units that could interfere with your audio when filming, and consider the light and time of day. While the room might have sufficient light in the morning, you may need to bring a lighting kit in to film during the afternoon or evening.
When creating an ad, you have 5 seconds to hook the viewer in so they watch more of your video. You see what Tai Lopez does? The background is him standing in a mansion, and the first thing he says is that he’s going to give you a tour of his mansion. Then he introduces himself. And to keep you watching, he gives you a video tour of the mansion while he talks about himself and what he offers. This is great marketing that few people have done.
Instead, you should create content that addresses your audience’s needs. Your goal should be to create videos that are helpful, valuable and compelling to your prospects and clients. If you can blog about it, you can create a video about it. Your video content may consist of how-to’s, answers to frequently asked questions, expert interviews, screen video captures, slide shows and more.